Guacamole - Finger Lickin' Good

My boyfriend and I made delicious guacamole on Super Bowl Sunday. While chopping up the final ingredient--cilantro--I managed to nick my finger with the knife. Okay, I more than nicked it. I took out a good chunk of flesh. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt. Tommy finished chopping up the cilantro as I went to the bathroom for some self-administered first aid. I rinsed my finger with Bactine and hydrogen peroxide, then wrapped it tightly with some leftover sterile gauze from my wisdom teeth extraction. I decided that I would go to urgent care if the bleeding continued. Thankfully, no blood seeped through the gauze at all and I was able to focus on finishing my half of the seven avocado guacamole.

Around halftime I decided to apply some Neosporin to the cut. I went to the bathroom to unwrap the gauze. The gauze was stuck to the wound! I tried once to gently pry the gauze off my finger but the pain--which was all but absent when the knife sliced through me--now screamed at me to stop. I ran some warm water over my finger in an attempt to soften the congealed blood. The gauze didn't budge. Tommy suggested that I let my finger soak longer. He brought me a Solo cup filled with warm water and we continued watching the game. Every so often I would wiggle my finger in the water to see if the gauze had loosened, and every so often Tommy would exchange the cooled contents of the cup for warm water. This continued for at least an hour. (Baby, correct me if I'm exaggerating.)

I finally accepted the fact that I needed to step up my offense. Using a Q-Tip, I applied triple antibiotic ointment all over and around the gauze. On its own, the lubrication didn't work. Over the next half hour I used Q-Tips to slowly and carefully pry the edges of gauze off of my mutilated finger. (Seriously, even the thought of experiencing pain makes my chest tighten with anxiety.) I had saturated several Q-Tips with blood by the time I finally got that damn gauze off.

As soon as my finger was free from its fabric confines I went to the bathroom to rinse it off. Because of all the irritation from teasing off the gauze, it had started to bleed again. Before I applied Neosporin to my big boo-boo and redressed it, I showed the finger to my boyfriend with a frown. He was speechless for several seconds and his face contorted with concern. He hadn't realized how much flesh I'd carelessly lopped off! The first thing he said was that we needed to go to the hospital. My sweetheart helped me get ready, making sure nothing touched my battle-wounded finger. There are several hospitals near us, but the only one I know how to get to is Stony Brook University Hospital...because I take classes two floors below the hospital's cafeteria. It makes sense, right?

To make a long story short, we went to the emergency room and after a few hours they sent me home with a tetanus shot and "special" non-stick gauze. I bet that Lamborghini-grade gauze will cost my insurance company a few hundred dollars. Interestingly, one of the doctors told me that I might've severed a nerve in my finger, which would explain why I felt no pain when I cut it. It did hurt when I was peeling the gauze off and I can feel sensation now, so who knows? They also said it was fortunate that my nail was undamaged because that would've required a completely different treatment plan. Later, Tommy told me that they said they would've had to remove the nail in that case! I somehow missed that part. It's a good thing I didn't hear that because I would've escaped from that torture chamber had I known fingernail removal was even a remote possibility! I can guarantee that I would have flipped out. There's no way I would have let them rip my nail off. (Can you sense the passion and ferocity* in my reaction?)

All's well that ends well, right? (I love you, Ma Ingalls. [Little House on the Prairie reference. Ignore it if you must.]) By the way, we never found that lost chunk of flesh. Tommy said he looked through the cilantro and it wasn't there. I don't know. I'm convinced we ate it. That guacamole was damn good, though.

*Ferocity is a fantastic word and I didn't have to use a thesaurus to find it.